Saturday, January 12, 2013

The Seventeenth Convention of the All India
Central Excise Inspectors’ Association was held at Patna on the 16th
and 17th of December 2012. The AICEIA congratulates the Patna Circle (Bihar and Jharkhand)for hosting a
very successful Convention and thanks them for the excellent arrangements they had made for
the meeting as well as for the generous hospitality extended to all participating
delegates.

The Open Session was held on
16.12.2012 and the Speaker of the Bihar Vidhan Sabha Shri Uday Narayan Choudhary inaugurated the
Convention.

Following this the Closed
Sessions were held over two days . The
Action Taken Report, Accounts for the period following the XVIth Convention
held at Bangalore in June’11, Elections to form a new Central Committee,
Resolutions sponsored by various Circles and Branches, and Amendments to the Constitution were the major
subjects on which the delegates to the Convention deliberated in detail and
important decisions were taken.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PATNA CONVENTION

HELD ON 16TH AND 17TH DEC.2012

As
many as 78 delegates from 25
Circles/Branches attended the Convention.

The
Convention unanimously resolved to fight for early implementation of Cadre
Restructuring under the banner of JAC.

Decided
to actively make use of the Grievance Redressal Mechanism set up at the level of CCA and
Commissionerates for settlement of disputes.

The
meeting also resolved to fight for MACP benefits to all eligible
Inspectors and early issuance of order for fixation of their initial pay.

Further
decisions include the active persuasion of the cases for notional fixation
wef 1.1.1996 and grant of GP of Rs.5,400/- pending in CAT and SC.

Also
decided to actively pursue time bound upgradation of Inspectors and to
evolve base cadre seniority to remove regional disparity and stagnation.

Decided
to continue to pursue the formation of a common platform with
Superintendents’ Association for making united demands.

CBEC
to be pursued for easing conditions and
considering the ICT applications expeditiously.

Constitution
of AICEIA amended to expand the definition of Branch, delete the provision
for Advisor and increase in membership subscription amount from Rs.40/- to
Rs.60/ per month, w.e.f April 2013, and enhancement of the Central Body’s
share from one-fourth to one-third.

Massive
drive to be undertaken for increase in membership with the help of Zonal
office bearers of the AICEIA.

The
focus of this Association in the first quarter of 2013 has to be to strengthen
organization at all levels, augment membership, get elections held in all
Circles/Branches wherever they have become due, and of course pursue with the
CBEC and the Government the various issues hanging fire since long.

In
this direction the Organizing Secretary, the
Zonal Vice Presidents and the Zonal Joint Secretaries have to play very significant roles in contacting regional Office Bearers, undertaking tours to
reach out to the last posts and bring into our fold those who are yet unaware
of the Association’s role in the scheme of things. Regular communication
through mail, telephone and personal
interaction would be essential to
achieve this. The Organising Secretary
has his job cut out: first and foremost, as assured by him to the Convention,
he has to undertake a massive membership drive in Delhi Circle, ensure that fair and free
elections are held by mid-February to elect a new AICEIA
Delhi Circle Committee, collection of DDO Certificates , clearing all
dues from Delhi Circle to the AICEIA Central body in stipulated proportion against all amounts collected so far from
Inspectors in Delhi. Once he has
accomplished this task, the Organising Secretary has to co-ordinate with
the Presidents and Secretaries
of all units – Circles and Branches to review and mobilize the membership drive in every
distant corner of the country. I request all
All India Office Bearers
especially Zonal Joint
Secretaries and Zonal Vice Presidents to engage with the Branch/Circle
Secretaries immediately and make
co-ordinated and sustained efforts to strengthen the organizational base
of the AICEIA and get more and more younger Inspectors involved in the
Association to play an active role and take up responsible positions at all levels in the next couple of years,
lest we be faced with a void whenever
promotions are effected en-bloc.

Following agitations and representations by various
Staff Associations and the the JAC, in
which the AICEIA has had a prominent role to play, the CBEC has directed vide letter dated 07.11.2012 (copy annexed)
all Chief Commissioners and Commissioners to hold regular meetings under JCM scheme or Grievance Redressal
Mechanism. A very important development in this direction is that the Board has
now stated unequivocally stated that HoDs/ CCAs must ensure that meetings with
recognized staff associations are held regularly and issues on which they are
competent to take decisions must be taken expeditiously. Further it has been
stipulated that for demands/issues that
require consideration at Board level, requisite proposals may be furnished
indicating the applicability of relevant Govt. instructions and the comments of
the forwarding authority, and that staff representatives should invariably be
kept informed of the action taken in such matters. All of us must understand
that this is an achievement following a prolonged and difficult struggle, and
we must make very effective use of this to advance our causes including issues
having All India ramifications, since when Chief Commissioners write to the
Board informing the problems being faced by the cadre across the country, and Associations take up the matter with the
Board in that backdrop, it is expected that action from the Board could be
expedited.

Two
most important issues all Circle Secretaries and Branch Secretaries need to
address on topmost priorityarethe collection of DDO Certificates and
clearance of dues to the central body. Both issues are equally important : the
former to quell any doubts in any quarters about our recognition, thelatter to improve our financeswhich are in very poor shape and is seriously
hindering our functioning.

It
is worth remembering here that the
AICEIA had decided to fight the case in the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India when
the Union of India filed Special Leave Petition
against the Order passed by the High Court of Madras in WP 13225 of 2010
filed by Shri M Subramaniam. The matter
relates to grant of NFSG Grade Pay of Rs
5400/- to Inspectors of Central Excise on completion of four years of service
after receipt of 1st ACP of Rs 4800/- GP. AICEIA had filed Caveat in the Supreme Court
on behalf of the Respondent. The SLP was heard for admission on 17.10.2011.
Senior Advocate engaged by the AICEIA appeared in the Supreme Court and argued
our case. As a result, no Stay on the
High Court Order was granted by the Supreme Court. However because of the
Government’s plea that the decision has huge financial implications and
therefore needs to have detailed arguments, the Supreme Court admitted the SLP
which accordingly got converted into Civil Appeal No. 8883 of 2011. Reply to the CA has been
filed by AICEIA on behalf of the party Respondent. The Civil Appeal is yet to
be listed for hearing in the Apex Court.

Since
huge expenses are involved in engaging counsel for Supreme Court, a Legal Fund
was set up by the AICEIA, for meeting costs of this case and to support other
legal issues. Contributions were sought
for this and the AICEIA expresses its heartfelt gratitude for the response
received to our call. Every single
contribution received towards this Fund have been duly accounted for as also
expenditure from the same. Statements reflecting these details have been placed
before the Central Executive Committee of the AICEIA and passed. Audited Accounts of this Fund too were included in
the Accounts presented before and passed
by the AICEIA Patna Convention . The
total amount collected in this Legal Fund was Rs 6,30,670/-. Out of this an
amount of Rs 3,17,511/- has been
spent towards fighting the court cases that the AICEIA is pursuing. Faced with an acute shortage of Funds to run the organization, Rs 2,14,138/- was withdrawn from this fund to meet routine
expenses of the Association during the period April’12 to August’12. Current
balance in Legal Fund is Rs 99,021/-. These audited accounts have been duly approved by the CEC of the
AICEIA at Bhubaneswar in August 2012 as well as the Convention of the AICEIA at
Patna, and it has been simultaneously decided to replenish the Legal Fund by a corresponding
amount from the Association’s general fund as soon as Subscription Arrears from
some units are received. The present AICEIA Committee too is determined to make
good this amount, and requests co-operation from all Branches/ Circles to clear
their dues at the earliest so that needful in this direction may be done as
soon as possible, since very soon we will have to incur more legal expenses
too, as also meet our routine costs of operation.

The
DGHRD convened a meeting of representatives of Recognised Staff Associations of
the CBEC on 21.12.2012 at New Delhi. A
presentation was made in the meeting on
the Welfare Fund Schemes, and suggestions were invited from
the Associations. This Association’s
suggestions were duly articulated and
submitted in writing too.

The
newly elected Central Committee of the AICEIA thanks the entire cadre of
Inspectors of Central Excise for the trust reposed in us, and assure that we would not be failing in our
efforts to address issues confronting
our cadre to the best of our abilities.